Nietzsche on nihilism and truth

[Scott Mayers]

I don't think Hitler was on any side of religion or non-religion as he seemed only to be concerned about fostering a Nationalism that empowered his idea. He interpreted Nietzshche's "will to power" as a necessary means to utilize any religion, including any made up ones, in order to foster the emotional drives to make his people ACT. Nationalism is just the collective set of beliefs that consolidate some group for this action. Since he interpreted everyone as competing using their own Nationality anyways, to him, it may be only arbitrary which Nationality is actually 'true' to some standard of nature. Instead, he believed that unless one is willing to stand strong for oneself as a group, just as he saw existed with the Jews, it is only those who lack any Nationality who will lose to those who have. Thus, he opts for preference to German's Nationality by default of ruling there only.

The Jewish community threatened him because they also act with strong Nationality and exclusivity (according to his or other's perception) in equal but opposing force. Christians lacked the 'genetic' bias and so was not as threatening because they were always open to recruit regardless of genetic/cultural/ethnic exclusion.

Are you trying to apologise for Hitler, or religion?

"I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.." , Mein Kampf, Hitler

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922

[Note, "brood of vipers" appears in Matt. 3:7 & 12:34. John 2:15 depicts Jesus driving out the money changers (adders) from the temple. The word "adders" also appears in Psalms 140:3]


Just as the Jew could once incite the mob of Jerusalem against Christ, so today he must succeed in inciting folk who have been duped into madness to attack those who, God's truth! seek to deal with this people in utter honesty and sincerity.
-Adolf Hitler, in Munich, 28 July 1922


In the Bible we find the text, 'That which is neither hot nor cold will I spew out of my mouth.' This utterance of the great Nazarene has kept its profound validity until the present day.
-Adolf Hitler, speech in Munich, 10 April 1923

We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933


There are thousands of such quotes. It is harder to find a passage where Hitler is NOT invoking God or Christianity, than it is to find one where he mentions them

No, I am not a fan of Hitler! [Why would you bother asking whether I'm 'apologizing' if only to create a scarecrow to sincere intellectual discussions?] My argument is that he believed in utilizing religious ferver as an effective tool to the extreme. He was likely relatively 'secular' in that he favored only those beliefs that acted to favor his own interests. Was he Christian? Even from the above, if you consider his belief in purposeful utility for things like propaganda, it is hard to interpret this by him as being sincere or not. He certainly favored Christianity over Judaism publicly. But if he followed Nietzsche and interpreted him as supporting a necessity to create religion where they don't exist for practical purposes, this lends weight to him acting purposely to appeal to his select audiences for just such utility.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I don't think Hitler was on any side of religion or non-religion as he seemed only to be concerned about fostering a Nationalism that empowered his idea. He interpreted Nietzshche's "will to power" as a necessary means to utilize any religion, including any made up ones, in order to foster the emotional drives to make his people ACT. Nationalism is just the collective set of beliefs that consolidate some group for this action. Since he interpreted everyone as competing using their own Nationality anyways, to him, it may be only arbitrary which Nationality is actually 'true' to some standard of nature. Instead, he believed that unless one is willing to stand strong for oneself as a group, just as he saw existed with the Jews, it is only those who lack any Nationality who will lose to those who have. Thus, he opts for preference to German's Nationality by default of ruling there only.

The Jewish community threatened him because they also act with strong Nationality and exclusivity (according to his or other's perception) in equal but opposing force. Christians lacked the 'genetic' bias and so was not as threatening because they were always open to recruit regardless of genetic/cultural/ethnic exclusion.

Are you trying to apologise for Hitler, or religion?

"I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.." , Mein Kampf, Hitler

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922

[Note, "brood of vipers" appears in Matt. 3:7 & 12:34. John 2:15 depicts Jesus driving out the money changers (adders) from the temple. The word "adders" also appears in Psalms 140:3]


Just as the Jew could once incite the mob of Jerusalem against Christ, so today he must succeed in inciting folk who have been duped into madness to attack those who, God's truth! seek to deal with this people in utter honesty and sincerity.
-Adolf Hitler, in Munich, 28 July 1922


In the Bible we find the text, 'That which is neither hot nor cold will I spew out of my mouth.' This utterance of the great Nazarene has kept its profound validity until the present day.
-Adolf Hitler, speech in Munich, 10 April 1923

We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933


There are thousands of such quotes. It is harder to find a passage where Hitler is NOT invoking God or Christianity, than it is to find one where he mentions them

No, I am not a fan of Hitler! [Why would you bother asking whether I'm 'apologizing' if only to create a scarecrow to sincere intellectual discussions?] My argument is that he believed in utilizing religious ferver as an effective tool to the extreme. He was likely relatively 'secular' in that he favored only those beliefs that acted to favor his own interests. Was he Christian? Even from the above, if you consider his belief in purposeful utility for things like propaganda, it is hard to interpret this by him as being sincere or not. He certainly favored Christianity over Judaism publicly. But if he followed Nietzsche and interpreted him as supporting a necessity to create religion where they don't exist for practical purposes, this lends weight to him acting purposely to appeal to his select audiences for just such utility.

You are talking bollocks. You are trying to distance Hitler from his religion, as if Christianity were to pure to accommodate him. But he was no more an antisemite that Martin Luther Germany's most famous cleric.
You are implying that his beliefs were insincere in one area, whilst being very sincere in another. Why? Why protect religion in this way. Open your eyes.

[Scott Mayers]

I'm atheist. I was only saying that we can't determine what Hitler may have actually believed with regards to being religious or not with regards to traditional forms. He was intent on creating his own based on the rationale he (or the party) interpreted of Nietzsche as suggesting that while religion may not be true, we would still require using it if only to compete realistically by a world that feeds on it. The Communists took Marx's interpretation to completely deny religion. The National Socialists believed in using it as a means to use it just as the Marxists' interpreted it as an Opiate of the people, but believed against him in abandoning and instead to utilize this in practice, or lose to a world which embraces it.

And with this discussion on Nietzsche, it is this factor that the Nazis borrowed from. It is also with regards to the interpretation of Darwin by them to regard success as requiring to 'fit' with the reality of the environment. To Nazis, this reality was that those who actually DO practice Nationalistic type of beliefs are the ones who always win, such as the Jews.

What is it that you are not getting here?

[Scott Mayers]

By the way, Hobbes, I also think that while knowing that many Christians may have something against Jews, this is not actually an initial construct of Christianity and I don't interpret their scriptures as ever actually asserting this other than to respect of the problems of the Jews and Romans of the past. In fact, I believe that Christianity was actually a Jewish adaptation that evolved to enable inclusiveness for Jews amongst Roman populations. But the Central European development that protested the Roman Catholic Church lived in a society to which they saw the Jews as many see the Gypsies akin to carnival con-artists who have a type of strong loyalty to their organizations and exclusive to outsiders. While it may not have been 'fair', the contrasting reality of groups to be strong are amplified by as much their own internal desire to be exclusive as it is to outsiders who foster prejudices against them like how trolling works online. No matter who initiates an accusation of 'trolling', or whether they are sincerely correct or not, as soon as this begins, a divide begins which only accelerates when both become trolls in kind.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I'm atheist. I was only saying that we can't determine what Hitler may have actually believed with regards to being religious or not with regards to traditional forms. He was intent on creating his own based on the rationale he (or the party) interpreted of Nietzsche as suggesting that while religion may not be true, we would still require using it if only to compete realistically by a world that feeds on it. The Communists took Marx's interpretation to completely deny religion. The National Socialists believed in using it as a means to use it just as the Marxists' interpreted it as an Opiate of the people, but believed against him in abandoning and instead to utilize this in practice, or lose to a world which embraces it.

And with this discussion on Nietzsche, it is this factor that the Nazis borrowed from. It is also with regards to the interpretation of Darwin by them to regard success as requiring to 'fit' with the reality of the environment. To Nazis, this reality was that those who actually DO practice Nationalistic type of beliefs are the ones who always win, such as the Jews.

What is it that you are not getting here?

It is a common enough mistake to attribute Hitler with the ideas of Nietzsche. Hitler was only dimly aware of N's philosophy. What really inspired Hitler was a belief in God and Darwinism. Darwin would have turned in his grave at the thought, but there is no doubt that Hitler found it a great inspiration. Nietzsche gets not a single mention, as far as I know.
The struggle for life is the basis of his ideas and God drips of every page.

[Hobbes' Choice]

By the way, Hobbes, I also think that while knowing that many Christians may have something against Jews, this is not actually an initial construct of Christianity and I don't interpret their scriptures as ever actually asserting this other than to respect of the problems of the Jews and Romans of the past. In fact, I believe that Christianity was actually a Jewish adaptation that evolved to enable inclusiveness for Jews amongst Roman populations. But the Central European development that protested the Roman Catholic Church lived in a society to which they saw the Jews as many see the Gypsies akin to carnival con-artists who have a type of strong loyalty to their organizations and exclusive to outsiders. While it may not have been 'fair', the contrasting reality of groups to be strong are amplified by as much their own internal desire to be exclusive as it is to outsiders who foster prejudices against them like how trolling works online. No matter who initiates an accusation of 'trolling', or whether they are sincerely correct or not, as soon as this begins, a divide begins which only accelerates when both become trolls in kind.

Obviously the earliest Christians were largely converted Jews. The cult spread, especially to Greece where much of the stuff was written down.
Antisemitism in Europe was due to immigration of large numbers in the early medieval period. I like Arthur Koersler's theory that the Ashkenazi jews were not from Judea at all, but from the fall of the Khazar empire. This would explain why the modern Euro-jew is white skinned with an Armenian appearance, rather than being phenotypically akin to other people of the Levant. i.e. Why not black like every one else?
The Khazar empire was wedged between the Christian west and the Muslim east. They decided to make the state religion Jewish, so as to favour neither side and become neutral. There were mass conversions in the early 8thC. But eventually when Khazar fell, the Jews fled westwards forming the main population of the Ashskenazi.
On arrival they were able to exploit the Christian laws against being money lenders and became bankers for enterprising Christians. The reputation of Jews and money lending is well made, given the act of Jesus to eject the money lenders from the temple had become a statutory rule against such practices. Cite, Merchant of Venice and an example.
For this reason Hebrew became a third language in many European countries (Latin being no. 2). Thus Jews were known for being separate, and with their 'secret' language were suspected of having interests in the occult. Add to that them being (w)bankers, pretty soon someone figured out that the Jews condemned Jesus to death, Pontius Pilot having washed his hands of the affair.
So Jews were making money by "doing nothing", were mysterious, has strange 'occult' rituals involving a secret language and they were also Messiah killers.

Of course Jews hate this idea, as the like to think of themselves as racially pure with a good claim on Israel.

[van Keister]

To quote Herr Nietzsche, one doesn't need logic and an argument, sometimes one needs a good box on the ears! Excellent insights into nihilism and truth, and yes, Nietzsche is as relevant as ever. As a philosophy major from San Diego, the class on Nietzsche filled up quicker than the Rolling Stones concert!

[Hobbes' Choice]

To quote Herr Nietzsche, one doesn't need logic and an argument, sometimes one needs a good box on the ears! Excellent insights into nihilism and truth, and yes, Nietzsche is as relevant as ever. As a philosophy major from San Diego, the class on Nietzsche filled up quicker than the Rolling Stones concert!

That's because Americans are rushing to dismantle their own culture, government and what is left of their sadly diminished sense of humanity and community.
When half of you are Randroids, and the Corporations own your butt cheeks, only then will you wake up to realise the folly of your selfishness.

[Scott Mayers]

I'm atheist. I was only saying that we can't determine what Hitler may have actually believed with regards to being religious or not with regards to traditional forms. He was intent on creating his own based on the rationale he (or the party) interpreted of Nietzsche as suggesting that while religion may not be true, we would still require using it if only to compete realistically by a world that feeds on it. The Communists took Marx's interpretation to completely deny religion. The National Socialists believed in using it as a means to use it just as the Marxists' interpreted it as an Opiate of the people, but believed against him in abandoning and instead to utilize this in practice, or lose to a world which embraces it.

And with this discussion on Nietzsche, it is this factor that the Nazis borrowed from. It is also with regards to the interpretation of Darwin by them to regard success as requiring to 'fit' with the reality of the environment. To Nazis, this reality was that those who actually DO practice Nationalistic type of beliefs are the ones who always win, such as the Jews.

What is it that you are not getting here?

It is a common enough mistake to attribute Hitler with the ideas of Nietzsche. Hitler was only dimly aware of N's philosophy. What really inspired Hitler was a belief in God and Darwinism. Darwin would have turned in his grave at the thought, but there is no doubt that Hitler found it a great inspiration. Nietzsche gets not a single mention, as far as I know.
The struggle for life is the basis of his ideas and God drips of every page.

I think that Nietzshe was highly important even though I agree with you that Hitler himself may not have even read him. It is a part of the times and even without directly reading his work, the idea of strengthening one's own by adapting a form of extreme optimism (that a strong "will" assures any reality), by fostering a religious belief in one's own using the tools of religion and myth, this is what I believe was what the National Socialists adapted in their philosophy.

Going beyond Hitler and into today's practices, I see this thinking still underneath many conservative mindsets. While I know that many of the 'followers' may often actually be religious, I wonder whether the actual leaders in such organizations are truly religious or simply feigning it for its power of appeal. I wonder this because the very philosophy of the right extremes of politics often actually support concepts that are not in tune with any actual religions if inspected closely upon. But the same populous of those who sincerely appear to believe are attracted to such leadership because of their own kind of strict "nationalism" of their particular religion. I don't think any particular religion is the culprit but rather its kind of religion, especially where they literally believe in their God's capacity to favor some people over others with 'supreme' justification.

[van Keister]

What we miss in our interpretations of Nietzsche and possibly Hitler is the grand historical vision of Geist with a Will to Power to create and conquer newer horizons, a newer world, and a newer man. Geist has a purpose, an historical context. We have lost this and don't have anything to replace it with dying economics and an antiquated religion. Without a universal goal, a direction, and an awakening, man slowly deteriorates into "human sand." Today I see us at a crossroads: either we continue to evolve into Superhumanity or become extinct. Nietzsche is totally relevant.